Using dedicated RPAS to measuring soil moisture using the GNSS Reflectometry

GNSS-R Technology

Mistrale

Welcome to the website of the Mistrale project. The Mistrale project aims at providing soil moisture maps using GNSS Reflectometry, to decision makers in water management, like farmers and water boards and nature management. The project develops a prototype sensor embedded on a dedicated RPAS platform. Mistrale wants to integrate various technologies to reach commercialisation with these GNSS-R based soil moisture maps.

The Mistrale team

The Mistrale project team welcome you on our website.

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The Mistrale Results

The Mistrale project has come to its final stage. The last reports and documentations will be finalised in the next weeks. Also this website is updated with the latest information. This website will be continued after the project and updated if there is new information. Keep visiting for news on Mistrale and on GNSS-R and soil moisture mapping.

All publications of Mistrale can be found on our publications page: This includes the movies we made to explain the project and to show progress in the drone development, the leaflet, the papers, public reports and posters.

On the results page you can found the test flights done and other results of the project.

The Mistrale Project is mentioned by the GSA at the Agriculture and Space Day held at the Belgian Natural Science Museum in Brussels. This results in an article in the prestigious INSIDE GNSS MAGAZINE.

At the event, GSA Director Carlo des Dorides highlighted some of the other projects under way: the Mistrale project that uses drones for soil water mapping, allowing farmers to optimize irrigation, saving costs and increasing yields; and GreenPatrol, that will result in early detection of pests and reduce productions losses and chemical use. These projects are run under the EU R&D program, Horizon2020.

For the Mako drone a stabilized antenna gimble is designed and tested, see the video below. With this stabilized antenna the GNSS-R signals are always picked up straight under the drone, even in a turn.

Last Friday (9-12-2016) Mistrale held a measurement campaign. With excellent effort and team-work a lot of data is collected for the validation of the sensor and system. This will forms the basis for the next year measurements. Now all the data from the ground measurements and the different airborne sensors has to be compared.

On the 8th of July the Mistrale consortium had a test day. The new prototype of the sensor was tested. The long range Boreal operated by L’Avion Jaune is used for that test flight. The Boreal is the RPAS that Mistrale will use in future for the larger Missions like research flights and mapping large areas for nature and water management. The boreal is able to flying for 10 hours while carrying the heavier Mistrale sensor of 1.5kg.